Love Or Something Like It
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: Rachel and Puck are having a baby. Puck wants them to get married. Rachel doesn't want to marry because she's pregnant


So, getting pregnant? That definitely wasn't part of the plan. And Rachel Berry was good with plans. She was very good with plans. She planned out everything. She planned out her entire life. She knew what she wanted from an early age and she went for it. But yes, she learned along the way that love has no plans. That's why in high school she had been in love with Finn. She hadn't planned it. She certainly hadn't accounted for it. But she had fallen in love with Finn. She fell in love with him and she thought they were going to be together forever. She thought they were soulmates.

They stayed together for a little while after they graduated. They tried to make it work. But Finn had stayed in Lima when she went to New York and it made it almost impossible for their relationship to last. Yes, they cared about each other still but love can fade with time and space. And it had. There was still love there but a different type of love. It was the type of love she would feel for a friend rather than she would feel for a partner, a lover, a boyfriend.

She dated another man for a little while. His name was Thomas and he was nice enough. He treated her well and they got along but there wasn't a spark there. And she had felt a spark with Finn back when the love was a romantic type of love. She tried to make things work with Thomas but in the end she knew that they would never love each other the way that she wanted to be able to love the man she was with.

Puck had moved into the city a year after she did. Shelby had moved back and he said he wanted to be closer to her so he could be closer to Beth, so he could see her sometimes. And Shelby seemed more than fine with that so it worked out for him. and after he had moved there she and Puck had reconnected, had become friends again. So after she and Thomas broke up Puck took her out for drinks. He claimed that the best way to get over a guy was to drink a little and have fun. And when she asked how he knew that he just smiled and shrugged and told her that with his experience with women he had to have learned a little something about them.

So they went out and they had drinks and for the first time she was actually able to laugh since she had decided to break up with Thomas. She had never been so happy to have Puck as a friend. Yes, when they were in high school they had become friends and he was there for her but this was different. He was helping her deal with something that wasn't easy. Breakups never are.

They started to spend a lot of time together after that. Not constantly, of course, but they still spent a lot of time together. They would go get drinks or hang out in her apartment and watch movies. She was even able to get him to eat vegan food which he complained was horrible but she just looked at him and knew he didn't hate it that much. If he hated it then he wouldn't eat it.

She wasn't sure when it changed from them just being friends who hung out to something more. All she knew was that one night she was sitting in her living room with him watching a movie and the next thing she remembered they were kissing and heading into her bedroom. And in truth she was a little nervous when it came to sleeping with him. she hadn't ever done it before. She had only actually slept with two people- Finn and Thomas. But besides that she knew that Puck had a very, very large list of people he had slept with. So she was a little anxious about that but it still just happened. It happened like it was always sort of meant to.

It wasn't really discussed, the two of them dating. It just sort of was an unspoken thing between them that they were going to start dating. And they did. The funny thing was that nothing much changed between them and in the way that they acted with each other. They still went out drinking with each other and they still hung out in her apartment watching movies. They only difference was that they were having sex which wasn't something they had done until that night.

And them having sex meant that she had to be careful and take precautions so that they wouldn't end up having a baby or anything. It wasn't something they planned on doing. So she went on birth control and most of the time they were sure to use condoms. Yes, sometimes their hormones got the best of them- they were only human, after all. But they tried to be careful. Neither of them wanted to have to figure out what they were going to do if she found herself pregnant.

But the thing was, Miss Rachel Berry who planned out everything in her life, never really looked at all of the things you had to remember when it came to taking birth control. Yes, she knew that you had to take it on a consistent basis or else it might not work. You couldn't skip a day. But the thing she hadn't really paid attention to was the fact that antibiotics stop birth control from working. So when she had a slight infection in her sinuses and had to take antibiotics for it she never really thought about the fact that she probably shouldn't be having sex because the pills wouldn't work.

It wasn't until she was even three weeks late that she started to think that she might have a slight problem. And when the idea of the problem started to kick in she was admittedly a little freaked out. She wasn't ready to be a mother. Not really. And she was sure he wasn't ready to be a father again. Yes, he got to be in Beth's life so he was technically like a father to her. or at least in Rachel's mind that's how it was.

So, at first she didn't tell him about her suspicions. Instead she decided to get one of those home pregnancy tests and took it without letting him know that she was doing so. And then when it came back as positive she thought it could have been a mistake. It was possible that it came back negative. It was possible that she didn't have her period for any number of reasons. So, she wasn't going to say that it was correct. Not yet.

Instead she made aan appointment and went to go see adoctor. And it wasn't until after that she found out that she was pregnant because the text that the doctor gave her came back positive as well. And it was when she said she was on birth control that she found out that antibiotics counteracted them and made them basically useless. So, she and Noah were going to be parents. They had created a baby.

And then there was the question of what she was going to do about being pregnant. Yes, she really wasn't a believer in abortion but she couldn't stop herself from considering it for a moment. But it was in a moment of panic that she considered it. She was afraid of what it would be like to have the baby. She was nervous because she was young and she and Noah weren't actually together in the way she believed that people should be when they had a baby. But she knew that she couldn't do that, that she couldn't have an abortion. And while she didn't have a problem with adoption in the slightest she wasn't sure she would ever be able to carry a child, give birth to it and then give it up. So she knew that she had to let Noah know what was going on.

A week later she invivted him over for dinner and once they were done eating she sat him down in the living room, took his hand and told him that they were going to be parents. And for a couple of empty seconds he just sat there and looked at her. he looked at her like he wasn't sure what he should say or think. It was like she had broken him. but in the end he sort of smiled at her. he sort of smiled at her and nodded his head and said that they would handle things. That they would be able to handle the situation even if it wasn't ideal.

So, for the first couple of months they just handled things. Noah would come with her to the appointments to see the doctor. He helped her setting up the nursery in her spare bedroom. He painted the room pale yellow because she told him she wanted the walls to be neutral; he put together the crib and without her even asking him to he bought bottles and pacifiers and things the baby would need after it was born. It was really sort of sweet that he was so dedicated to being a father. It was sweet.

But she's at almost six months pregnant now and she's sitting in the kitchen drinking her tea to keep her stomach from churning too much and Noah just keeps looking at her. they've had a bit of a strange dynamic between the two of them because two weeks before he had suggested that maybe they should get married. She had looked at him like maybe he had lost his mind and maybe he had. He had to have lost his mind if he thought that was a good idea to bring up.

But Noah just keeps on looking at her and so after a moment she puts her cup down and just looks up at him, both of her eyebrows arched at him. the little one has been kicking all morning like it knows that there's tension between its parents. Its not a horrible tension like people get when they're about to split up but its tension nonetheless.

"Are you going to just keep looking at me?" she finally asks him. "Or are you going to actually say whatever's on your mind?"

Noah just shrugs and puts his coffee mug down, swallows down the mouthful he's just taken. "I still think we should get married." He says it like it's the most logical thing in the world, like thinking they shouldn't was pure insanity.

Rachel sighs and reaches down, rubs her stomach as the little one kicks her like its trying to say something. She's not sure if its agreeing with Noah or not. She can't tell. She wishes she could though. "Noah, I'm not marrying you just because we're having a baby," she finally tells him, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach.

"Then marry me because you love me."

Rachel blinks dumbly at him like his words aren't even in English anymore. She had never actually told him that she loved him but the fact of the matter was that in the end? Yes, she did love him. she had found herself loving him despite everything, despite the fact that she wanted to try not to fall in love again after two breakups in a couple of years. But she had fallen in love with Noah.

Sighing heavily she turns her gaze down to her hand on her stomach and licks awkwardly on her bottom lip. "I don't want you to marry me because we're having a baby, Noah. or because I love you. That's not fair to put that on a person. You shouldn't be stuck with someone just because they love you, Noah. you should marry someone because you love them."

"Are you completely nuts?" Rachel could flinch at the implication except he sounds so surprised that she can only look at him with wide, wide eyes. "Rachel, if I didn't fucking love you and all of your crazy then why would is tick around? Yeah, I'd be there for my kid. But if I didn't love you then I wouldn't stay with you. That's just a fucking fact. You know I don't stick around when I don't want to."

It was news to her. not that he wouldn't stick around but that he actually loved her.

"I just….if we get married now it'll seem like we're doing it because of the baby. Everyone will think that."

"So? We'll get married after the kid comes. No big deal. I can wait. I'm not going anywhere."

Beneath her hand she feels the baby kick in an almost relaxed way and as she looks up at him she knows that its true. He's going to be around for a long, long while.

"I'll think about it."

"Is that the kind of thinking about it where you say you will just to shut me up?"

"No. I'll really think about it."

"I can live with that. For now."


End file.
